Food Drive Feeds Hundreds; Christmas Drive is On!

One of the charities that I support, among others listed on my website http://www.roccobasile.net/, is - Children of the City - who rounded up 100 volunteers from all over New York to give away Thanksgiving meals to needy families this last November. Over 700 adults and children, about 119 families in all, got a 25-lb box of food to feed a family of six. They either received a turkey or ham.

America's Second Harvest stated that, "one in five people standing in line at a soup kitchen this Thanksgiving was a child." And it is sad to say that one in four children in New York City live in poverty. More than 16,000 homeless children sleep in the New York City shelter system each night.

My family and I helped again this year, and as always, it's truly rewarding.

****

Christmas without a gift is the reality for many of these children living in poverty. I would like to encourage you to put a smile on a child's face this year via a tax-deductible gift to the Children of the City's 2008 Christmas Project. This year we are partnering with New York Cares and St. John's Bread and Life. Since 1981, thousands of children have received a Christmas present thanks to these folks who know the true meaning of Christmas is giving ...

To donate simply click this link. Happy holidays! -- Rocco Basile

New Education Secretary Arne Duncan Announced

President Elect Barack Obama just named his Education Secretary -- longtime friend and fellow Harvard alum Arne Duncan, who headed the Chicago public school system. He has a reputation as an educational reformer, and will be very strong for our country as part of the strengthening of student math and reading skills as an educational trend in the New Year, a topic I cover on my website http://www.roccobasile.net/.

Duncan was responsible for closing then reopening and improving a once failing school known as the Dodge Renaissance Academy on the West side of Chicago. Now 79.4 percent of their students meet or exceed state goals; in reading, 69.7 percent of the students meet or exceed the goals.

Focus to attention is what most students need to improve their skills in reading and math. We know this from the work being done at Childrenofthecity.org, in Brooklyn, New York. This charity recently rallied together over 100 volunteers to distribute free Thanksgiving meals to needy families at their facility on Sunday November 23, 2008, feeding over 700 adults and children. 119 families in all came to Children of the City and received a Thanksgiving meal which included a 25-lb box of food to feed a family of 6 and either a ham or turkey.


“One in five people standing in line at a soup kitchen this Thanksgiving was a child. 1 in 4 children right here in New York City live in poverty” said the organization's Joyce Mattera, Executive Director and Founder.

--Rocco Basile

The Cost of Education Today

Today's New York Times had a Letter to the Editor response to a prior article by writer Tamir Lewin that was published on December 3, 2008 focusing on how College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S. based on the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Eric J. Furda, the dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania wrote that there are some institutions like his that do offer aid to students. There, undergraduate students who are eligible for financial aid are offered no-loan packages, regardless of family income.

He went on to say what this means is that students from typical families with incomes that are less than $40,000 per year will pay no tuition, nor room or board. Penn accepts students based solely on academic and other strengths, not on families’ ability to pay. And despite the current economic crisis, they remain steadfast in this commitment to educate the best and brightest young people, regardless of economic background.

Here's my favorite part of his comments... Penn’s founder Benjamin Franklin once said, an investment in education pays the greatest interest.

As I continue the work I do for my two charities, including Children of the City and the Joe Dimaggio Award Committee, for my Alma Mater, Xaverian High school (left photo), it is rewarding to know that the youth participating in these programs will have a chance to attend college and universities, because of the care we are putting into helping them now. My website, http://www.roccobasile.net/ features many of the exciting programs that are in progress.

But it is pretty sad to read the some of the statistics in the report. College tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last ten years, while students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

-- Rocco Basile

Final Stages of No Child Left Behind

On November 13, officials discussed the final Title I regulations to strengthen No Child Left Behind (NCLB) ED during a national teleconference. Back on October 28 U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had announced the final regulations to strengthen and clarify NCLB, focusing on improved accountability and transparency, uniform and disaggregated graduation rates and improved parental notification for Supplemental Education Services and public school choice.

As I follow educational trends and often post interesting facts on my website http://www.rocccobasile.net/. I thought perhaps this slide show from the teleconference call would be of great interest to those who did not yet read it.

Click here to see the PowerPoint presentation of slides. This discussion was led by ED officials who were involved in developing the regulations and who are helping states, districts, and schools implement them. The focus was on regulations related to high school graduation rate, supplemental educational services, and public school choice.

Basically, the reforms introduced into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) by the NCLB have changed the way that states and districts approach educating all students to achieve high standards.

Now, the final regulations respond to the lessons learned from six years of implementing the reforms, and build on the advances states have made with their assessment and accountability systems. --Rocco Basile

President Elect Obama and Educational Reform

I was doing some detailed research online and studying how things might change insofar as education with the new president in office. As you know I support education via my charities - http://www.childrenofthecity.org/ and also on my educational website http://www.roccobasile.org/. But with the new president, there will be new policies. It is important that we all know what these are.

President elect Obama has been a leader on educational issues throughout his career, and in the Illinois State Senate he was a leader on early childhood education, helping to create the state's Early Learning Council. In the U.S. Senate, Obama has also been a leader in working to make college more affordable. His first bill sought to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100.

Obama also helped pass legislation to achieve that goal in the recent improvements to the Higher Education Act, and he has also introduced legislation to create Teacher Residency Programs and to increase federal support for summer learning opportunities.

Unlike some of the other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care. Their "Zero to Five" plan will provide support to young children and their parents, and unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden plan to create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. They will:

• Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.
• Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Here are other key promises:

Barack Obama will reform No Child Left Behind
Both Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. That is why he plans to improve the assessments used to track student progress, and measure a student's readiness for college.

Invest in early childhood education
This comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children as well as their parents, helping states move towards a voluntary, universal pre-school system.

Make college affordable to all Americans
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have plans to create what they are calling a new American Opportunity Tax Credit worth $4,000 in exchange for community service. It will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.

Obama has some aggressive plans. Check out his Education Website. -- Rocco Basile

Watch the entire video by clicking below:

Education in Thailand Poses Long-term Threat

In my research for my own educational trends website, http://www.rocdcobasile.oprg/, I often come across interesting articles about educational situations, or trends from other countries. The country of Thailand's political stability is a mess because of the months-long standoff between the administration and the People's Alliance for Democracy. What is more compelling however, than this country's politics, is the quality of basic education. It is this issue that will pose a long-term threat to the country, according to a recent report by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment.

Left: These children are members of the Palong, a Mon-Khmer tribe found mostly in Burma's Shan state.

Halfway into the five-year evaluation of the performance of both primary and secondary schools across the country, the bad news is out. One-fifth of the 22,811 schools did not pass, and with more than 12,800 schools yet to be evaluated, since most of them are small ones located in remote areas, the chances of these passing the standard are remote, as they are already struggling to find enough money to run the schools, as well as teachers.

This is such a sad story in a country with a government where politicians taking the helm of the ministry of education do it for position and for the sake of their party, and not for the students.
And even through teachers are considered very important when general elections come, and are influential in rural areas they too can convince voters who to cast the ballot for when the time comes to vote. This is why many policies and projects target the teachers.

In Thailand, over the past eight years, there have been only two ministers in education who were qualified and praised by educators keen to see improvements in education.

Perhaps the country should consider a template for improved education that works from other countries, and cities, like the program instituted in Brooklyn, NY by Children of the City. Volunteers help the children with their homework, and provide a community environment where kids want to learn.

--Rocco Basile

The source for tis article came from Saritdet Marukatat, a News Editor, Bangkok Post.

Statistics on Our Country's Education

According to a website called Charity Navigator, there are about 1.5 million elementary school teachers and 1.1 million secondary school teachers in the United States, and the amount spent, by average, on home schooling per child in the United States is about $450. Here are some more interesting statistics, and you'll find other data on my website at http://www.roccobasile.org/.

• There are between 8 and 15 million children nationwide are unsupervised at the end of each school day;
  The average deaf child isn't introduced to English until age six, upon entering school.
  87% of Americans aged 18 to 24 have completed high school with a diploma or an alternative credential such as a General Education Development (GED) certificate;


• School districts in the U.S. with the highest child poverty rates have $1,139 fewer state and local dollars to spend per student than the wealthiest districts; and


• When among 18- to 24-year-old Americans are given maps, 70 percent cannot find New Jersey and 11 percent cannot find the United States.

This country is in a sad state when it comes to the education of our youth. And based on the charities that i have been working with, the only resolution are programs that actually do make a difference, like Children of the City.

On October 30 we had a Friends and Legislators Cocktail Party which was hosted by Commerce Bank. The purpose of the event was to bring together individuals from the New York business community, political community, and philanthropic community to continue dialogue around educational, social, and humanitarian needs of disadvantaged children and families in Greater New York.

Before Christmas we will be hosting our annual toy drive. Stay tuned with more info.

-- Rocco Basile

Election results and Education.

Now that the election is over, let's take a look at how the process affected education and students, and also how the results will affect education. All of us know the importance of voting and teaching our youth about the process of creating laws, tracking election results and voter turnout, and teaching students what its like to make tough decisions. It is what our elected officials make every day. After all, if our children don't get it when they are youth, then who is going to be there in the political world when we are all old and gray?

Over the last couple of months, our country's media have been broadcasting ads in which this year candidates for office talk about goals, dreams, and their accomplishments, and make promises. On Election Day, it isn’t about how many babies those candidates have kissed ... it’s about the number of votes.

As you may know, I believe that lack of education is the root of most of the troubles in this country. My website, http://www.roccobasile.org/ focuses on trends in education, and shows allot of information on how educating our youth will help reduce crime, poverty and violence. That is very obvious from working with my charity programs including Children of the City.

Teachers in classrooms nationwide have been using Election Day as a significant teachable moment. One website called Education World, even houses lessons that emphasize election vocabulary, the importance of voting, and the jobs that elected officials do. Election Day is all about preparing kids to understand this year’s election results.

And now that the results are in, here's what we can look forward to in the new administration insofar as education and our youth. Rahm Emanuel apparently will be Barack Obama's White House chief of staff. Here's what he proposed several months back: Force students to complete high skill and at least one year of college or higher education. Expanded education tax credits.

And in a Q&A session with Fox News, here's what the new president elect Obama said.

Q: As president, can you name a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line & say, "You know what? Republicans have a better idea here?"
A: I think that on issues of education, I've been very clear about the fact--and sometimes I've gotten in trouble with the teachers' union on this--that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers.
Q: You mean merit pay?
A: Well, merit pay, the way it's been designed, I think, is based on just a single standardized test--I think is a big mistake, because the way we measure performance may be skewed by whether or not the kids are coming into school already 3 years or 4 years behind. But I think that having assessment tools and then saying, "You know what? Teachers who are on career paths to become better teachers, developing themselves professionally--that we should pay excellence more." I think that's a good idea.
Source: Fox News Sunday: 2008 presidential race interview Apr 27, 2008

-- Rocco Basile

Politics and Education

As we near the election, it seems that politics are at the top of the mind in everything we do and think about. Public education has always played an important part in politics in this country, but it also has been subject to continual political scrutiny. As are some of the educational organizations that are in various communities, who are simply trying to help, including groups like Children of the City. I support a number of educational charities, which you can read about at www.roccobasile.org. In any case, I am intriegued with the progress of educational trends and politics in this country...

Local politics and education are inseparable, as every city’s local school system is an organization with a political culture. It is a very competitive environment in which various groups from both within the system, and outside, compete for power, and typically, very limited budgetary resources. Yet our local school systems are devoted to children and tax dollars -- two of our most important resources.

It is nothing new that limited resources create varying degrees of funding ability for most local school systems, which in turn creates a lot of competition for existing resources. That’s why special interest groups compete, and funding priorities become the object of political debate at all levels – local, state and national.

In general, education is often a major part of both national political party platforms as well as local community discussions. We have seen that focus in the recent news about the current elections.

In case we have forgotten -- our country’s Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution delegated authority over education to the states, and each state varies from highly decentralized local education systems to more centralized state systems like Hawaii. But the most recent trend has been movement toward increased state standards and accountability systems.

Federal Interest in Education has long been part of our culture. In 2001, under direction of President Bush, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was renewed and renamed No Child Left Behind Act (2001). It was a critical step in bettering our country’s public education – the objective being - to increase accountability by identifying schools that were in need of improvement. It also called for “highly qualified” teachers in every classroom. Many believed that it empowered knowledgeable parents with the ability to wage war against school administrators who were not responsive to parental concerns.

Of all the localized special interest groups – from football supporters, planning and zoning committees, business, boards and various other local agencies, there is also the idea that diverse communities can become divided on school issues in areas of socio-economics. And as always, religion and political affiliation can also play a role in the politics of local education, and public education advocates and privatization groups often differ on local policies. Even community business groups can also be divided regarding the money required for facility improvement projects such as stadiums. the passing of school bond issues to finance school facilities can become very politically charged. That is why effective local school leadership lies in balancing these diverse special interest groups.

The reality is that politics are part of every local school system. Effective local school leaders must therefore learn to work within the unique political reality of their local system to accomplish organizational objectives. This is something that one of the charities that I work with called ChildrenoftheCity is quite good at, and I know they follow these guidelines for the betterment of the community as a whole. They try to clearly understand and empathize with varying points of view; they are honest about divergent positions; they try to include all stakeholders in the decision making process; they collaborate within the community, and Children of the City builds partnerships for overcoming future challenges. It works.

-- Rocco Basile

Leaving Behind - No Child Left Behind?

The domestic law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) took effect in 2002 with bipartisan support, with the goal moving from a desire for all children to attend school to all students in school achieving proficiency. By requiring that English and math scores be reported by categories such as income and race, it was intended to spotlight gaps in achievement.

The problem has been how to best measure proficiency, so closing the gaps has been pretty challenging -- so much so that they've delayed the act's re-authorization. Now any changes to the law maybe even its name are going to have to be left behind, or at least wait until after the country has a new president and Congress. Although there have been dozens of proposals for changes to NCLB, about the only thing anyone agrees with is the fact that it is important to find ways to help students and schools that have fallen behind.

The NCLB program has been able to identify the schools that are low-performing, but there are many improvements needed to meet the original mission of the law. Apparently about one-third of Americans see NCLB favorably, another one-third see it unfavorably, and the rest just don’t know, according to an annual poll by Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK), an education association in Bloomington, Ind.

The National Education Association (NEA), which is the largest teachers' union in the United States, has asked that states be allowed to use growth models for federal accountability. It also would like multiple measures of student achievement, not just standardized tests. Thus far Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has allowed 10 states to test growth models.

But here’s what I find most interesting. While all this is taking place, and we are soon to find out if NCLB will be left behind next year, there are communities with programs that are already flourishing – as you can see on my educational trends website http://www.rcooccobasile.org/. And, as a Board member of ChildrenoftheCity.org. (http://www.childrenofthecity.org/) I see children and families living in Brooklyn New York taking advantage of a number of amazing programs that have been benefiting students and their learning.

And, in Texas, another town is showing what can happen when an entire community commits to student progress. In the Brownsville Independent School District, where nearly all students come from low-income Hispanic families, and four in ten are not native English speakers, they have made huge strides in closing the achievement gap with whites and higher-income students. This program earned this community the Broad Prize for Urban Education, which comes with $1 million in college scholarships for high school seniors who show academic progress and financial need.

Brownsville Superintendent Hector Gonzales said, “All children can learn …"We brought in a lot of staff development for every teacher to be able to look at the students' strengths and weaknesses and take those students to the next level.... Teachers truly believe that the students can be very successful."

Here’s how their program worked. Their review board of education experts chose five Broad Prize finalists from among the 100 of the largest US school districts serving sizable numbers of low-income/minority students. It considered factors like reduction of achievement gaps, performance on state tests, graduation rates, college entrance exams, as well as accountability measures in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.

Later, a consultant visited the finalist districts to conduct interviews, and later a jury of business, government, and public-service leaders chose the winner. This jury praised Brownsville for directing 85 percent of funding directly to instruction, which is much more than the 65 percent required in their state of Texas.

Brownsville doesn't narrowly focus on raising standardized test scores. It offers a program for gifted students, music, art, sports, and enrichment, including a competitive chess club. But test scores have improved, partly because teachers are trained to track student progress and target individual needs.

Nationally, Hispanic students have made gains on national assessments since enactment of NCLB, but overall progress has been slight. In the Texas program, the parents played an important role as well. Each school has a center where parents can learn English, computer literacy, and the skills required so they could help their children. What’s more, across the US, teachers in many districts have little access to professional development, textbooks, and assessments to meet the needs of students who don't speak English upon entering school.

--Rocco Basile

Income Disparity and Children's Education

The latest news item on educational information comes to us from Georgia in an article about how income disparity shows up in children’s health. Andy Miller of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (10/8/2008) wrote about a new report that sadly ranks Georgia near the bottom on two key measures of children’s health focusing on family income and education.

Georgia has a higher-than-average rate of infant mortality. That is when a child dies before their first birthday. According to a national report that was released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Georgia infants born to the most-educated mothers have a much greater chance of living past their first birthday than infants with mothers who have fewer years of schooling.

Georgia comes in as 46th among states on the size of that gap in infant mortality based on a mother’s education; and the state also shows a big disparity in children’s health status based on household wealth. Here are some of the main points:

• Nearly 15 percent of Georgia children age 17 or younger are in less-than-optimal health, as reported by their parents. But as income rises, children’s health improves. The report said 26 percent of Georgia children in poor families have health problems, compared to 5.7 percent of kids in high-income households.


• Georgia ranked 41st on that health gap between higher-income households and poor families. Even children in middle-class families appear to be less healthy than those in higher-income households in Georgia, the report found.


• The study, by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, shows that across the country, shortfalls in health are greatest among children in the poorest or least-educated households.

Other statistics in the report state:

• More than 40 percent of Georgia children live in poor or near-poor households, while 26 percent live in high-income families.


• More than one-third of Georgia children live in households where no one has education beyond high school.


• Infant mortality rate among Georgia babies born to African-American mothers is more than twice the rates among babies of white or Hispanic mothers.

As this study clearly proves, there are significant inequalities in children’s health based on income, education and race, we know that there are ways that communities can come together to help find solutions to overcome such issues. As I continue my work with charities such as Children of the City, which can be viewed on my website at http://www.roccobasile.org/, we see examples every day of successes.

For example, the charity's Create Success Summer Program ended with outstanding results. It is the only summer program in the community of Brooklyn New York that has a strong academic focus. It is no surprise that with a drop out rate of 48 percent, children doing poorly was especially evident in the areas of reading and math. They simply lack of crucial foundational skills.

Children of the City tailors programs to the specific needs of each child as well as the general needs of each age group. There are students suffering from the effects of poverty like trauma, challenges at home, language barriers, poor self-esteem and lack of confidence, all of which affect their ability to learn. But because of the program's familiarity with their needs, and a holistic approach, there is much success.

No child is incapable of literary success. Children in this program have left Special Ed classes to join main stream classrooms, and kids that were about to be placed in Special Ed were able to comfortably read after being in this program for less then two months. Based on academic assessments, children in the Children of the City Summer Program showed a marked increase in their developmental reading assessments. Several even increased one whole grade level.

Educational Trends: Social Media in Education

New resources are appearing every day about social media marketing, networking and other forms of social media. What is it, and how are educators using social media? Social media is defined as the online technologies and practices used to share opinions, ideas, experiences, perspectives and insights with other people. Therefore, in the education world, social media is changing the way we learn, teach, interact and access others worldwide. People everywhere are having conversations online.

Social networks were only beginning to gain traction in the spring of 2007. Now their memberships are in the hundreds of millions. For the latest trends check Author Paul Gillin's book, The New Influencers and its website - NewInfuencers.com. But following is a quick rundown of some of the activities involved in social media:

1) Websites that are properly optimized - so people can find them via search engines online
2) RSS feeds, or Really Simple Syndication - people can now publish online
3) Optimized article submissions linking back to your website
4) Blogs and Vlogs - to share content and videos (e.g. YouTube or Google Video)
5) Webcasts/Podcasts/Videocasts - Another way to share information from a desktop
6) Social networks (MySpace, Flicker, Stumble Upon, etc.)
7) Socializing web content (tagging and bookmarking) - it's a library online
8) Communities online - niche groups according to interests and topics

Today, many businesses have been using social media and now employers are finding the benefits of using social media including: 63 percent are using social media to build and promote their brand, 61 percent are using it to improve communication and collaboration, and 58 percent are using it to increase consumer engagement. Study Finds Rapid Enterprise Adoption of Social Networks.

For many educators, the implications of social media are huge. Blogging is an enjoyable way to share information, to learn from others, and also to make professional acquaintances, while podcasts or videos can help others learn anytime, anywhere. Just take a look at my own website, http://www.roccobasile.org/, where you can note all the educational articles that I have compiled having to do with the programs I am involved with for my educational charities.

What amazes me is how fast kids have adapted to the concept of social media. MySpace is a huge congregation of sharing among kids. And as another example, at one of my charities known as ChildrenoftheCity.org, one of the ways in which we raise funds involves online social media marketing to share our successes and to let others know the good work being done.

Anyone can use social media tactics for one of the following goals:
1. Conversation Mining. Research and mine consumers in vertical and horizontal networks and communities.
2. Invite influencers (customers/teachers/parents) into the circle to share and learn.
3. Choose the tools. Subscribe to tools and assign several people to watch and listen to online conversations about education in your area.

Social media in education also provides the ability for students to interact across cultures, both virtually and directly. It also allows intercultural researchers to create new forms of study abroad via co-seminars, to create or even analyze culture creation through new social technologies. This could radically transform our approaches to international and intercultural education.

Here are some social media networking sites for educators, networking and sharing information:
Education Futures - exploring the rise of innovative knowledge societies
Twitter - where people can share in real time
Facebook.com - (Sign up; review groups; use Friendster)
LinkedIn.com - ask “Questions” and “Answers” on Linked-In
Squidoo.com - a place to post and share topical information
Gather.com - where you can post educational content
Skype - for instant messaging using audio/video
Second City - for virtual teaching and conferences

In summary, social media today is blending innovative technologies with social interaction, and the co-construction of new knowledge into popular social media outlets for online interaction that are centered around Web 2.0. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

-- Rocco Basile

Should we Encourage Kids to get a High Degree?

It recently came to my attention in an article in the Wall Street Journal that workers with professional degrees, like lawyers, or doctors, were the only group to see their inflation-adjusted earnings increase over the recent economic conditions. Workers in every other educational group, such as Ph.D.s or high school dropouts, earned less in 2007 than they did in the year 2000. So a person with a bachelors degree's wages actually fell. And even more compelling to note, is the fact that it is proving how there is now an even bigger economic gap.
(Source: Census Bureau. Data don't include 2008 earnings.)

In my work for the Joe DiMaggio Committee, one of the charities that I am involved with, education is the primary concern, because we raise money to provide a good education for children of financially challenged families. The Committee's premiere fund raising event is The Joe DiMaggio Award Gala, to benefit Xaverian High School, my alma mater.

Economists are citing multiple reasons for falling wages for people with a bachelor's degree including:

• Blue and white-collar jobs are being sent abroad to places like India.


• Immigrants competing for jobs in the U.S. has increased.


• Job growth during the 2001 to 2007 expansion was weak compared to the late 1990s.


• Rising health-care costs are big part of total compensation today; more than in the past.


• The Census data measure income, which doesn't include the health-care bills paid for by employers


• Inflation-adjusted median salary for people with professional degrees was $89,602 in 2007, up about 3 percent from 2000, when the median salary was $87,158, according to the Census. There were income declines in all other groups including those with college and doctorate degrees.


• Inflation-adjusted median salary for a person with a bachelor's degree fell about 3 percent, adjusted for inflation, to $47,240 last year from 2000. Median master's-degree salaries fell

Census data shows the value of and education. In 2007 the median income for people with a bachelor's degree was about two-thirds more than for those with only a high-school diploma. And people with a master's degree made 20 percent more than those folks who only had a college degree.

--Rocco Basile

Food Expert Talks about Schools and Children's Nutrition

Prue Leith, internationally known food expert and chair of the United Kingdom’s School Food Trust, recently discussed health news, parents and children on http://www.vision.org/. She believes that fighting obesity beginnning in childhood, is worth doing. As she discussed the role of family and relationships in nutrition, Leith emphasizes that children are not eating right, “because their parents were not taught anything about food and a lot of them were not taught to cook.”

“Family meals have gone right out the window,” she said, chiding parents who give their children pocket money instead of making sure they eat a good breakfast. “Forty percent of children buy a chocolate bar and a fizzy drink on their way to school by way of breakfast ...”

Research has proven that most foods are an acquired taste, so once you have given someone like a child nine two ounce portions of broccoli , they will like it. It has also been proven that behavior and concentration are linked to good versus bad diets and nutrition.

Leith talked about the methods of teaching nutrition and which works best in schools, recommending teaching about food and cooking in school, and in cases where it is possible, she believes the kids should grow food or go and visit farms. The reason? Because just as soon as children start getting interested in food, they are more likely to care about what goes into their own bodies.

The country of Finland reduced its obesity rate from 35 percent to two percent in 15 years thanks to radical changes in the school system. The schools created a pleasant atmosphere for eating and also taught children about food, getting them actively involved in working in kitchens, serving as well as cleaning up and.

We live in a "snacking society" with pressures from commericals and ads from food manufacturing companies, so Leith also discussed positive and negative peer pressure with regard to the fight against obesity. Schools, parents, family and relationships with the teachers all play a critical role.

Leith encourages parents, teachers, catering staff and school officials to get involved by setting an example for good nutrition and eating habits.

-- Rocco Basile

Children of the City: Remembering 9-11

It was just like any other Tuesday, but it ended up being Tuesday 9/11: and as the world watched in horror while two hijacked airplanes bought down the Twin Towers in New York, many families and children suffered. Children of the City was one of the first organizations to reach out to children who lost family members and loved ones, who were traumatized by visually seeing the attacks live or were exposed to the barrage of media attention. Its program, Heal New York, was birthed out of an immediate response to 9/11. The charity's program ran from September 2001 through August 2005, and served critical trauma and prevailing mental health issues and social problems, through counseling, and activities with group therapy.

Today, in memory, for four hours heads were bowed at Ground Zero in New York, as the names of all 2,974 victims were read out in memorial to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The memorial included a total of 208 people who took part in the roll call as thousands of relatives of those who died in the attacks gathered in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, overlooking the site of the World Trade Center on the seventh anniversary of its collapse.

Years later, the effects of that day are not forgotten—and Children of the City continues to counsel children and their families, most of whom would otherwise not have received help to cope with this devastating trauma in their lives. The program officially ran from Sepember 2001 through August 2005.

Some parents today even have trouble teaching their children how to deal with such a horrible event in our history. This article posted on the TeacherVision web site, written shortly after the attacks, give some age-specific ideas on how to deal with the subject.

Children who experience trauma have typical reactions that hinder them from completing one stage of development, says Erickson's Developmental Stages. 9/11 created feelings of helplessness, fear, and general regression for very young kids. Children between the ages of 6-11 were unable to focus on their school work resulting in many being held back to repeat the grade.

The good news is that more than 600 children and youth were served to through Heal New York. Counseling sessions have been provided in the homes monthly, and coupled with the counseling, there have been many group therapeutic activities, including art and play therapy, sports, and journaling.

Children of the City expanded its Heal New York counseling program to a broader populace of children due to the large amount of pre-existing trauma and prevailing mental health issues. This detection, followed by adequate counseling and instruction for both parents and children, ensure that destructive behavioral patterns are not perpetuated from generation to generation.

Learn more about the charities that I support for education of our youth at http://www.roccobasile.org/.

The Status of Educational Reform

Have you ever wondered why all of the sudden there are more computers in K-12 classrooms across the U.S? For over ten years now, reformers have attempted to revolutionize the way schools operate, and this includes how students learn. There have been a number of top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top changes in areas including administration, curriculum and even outreach. The result of many of these reforms, is that technology is now playing a bigger role in education.

When you look back, education reform appeared in 1983 when a report called A Nation at Risk was published, outlining the poor state of affairs within the K-12 environment. It highlighted low basic comprehension rates to high dropout rates, and was what made administrators and policy makers pay attention to the fact that educational reform was needed.

After that, one of the changes was in the area of standardization of testing among students. A number of states began to legislate merit pay programs for educators, so by 1986, there were 46 states that offered merit pay plans, an increase from 28 states in 1983. Teachers were evaluated on their educating ability and knowledge of their subjects in order to determine not only raises but also their bonuses.

Today research now suggests that the initial focus on standardization did little to affect student learning and comprehension, and that the studies suggested that changes in professionalism and administration did not indicate an effective education strategy implementation - with teaching guidelines becoming more complex but less coherent. What was missing? One of the core issues was teacher empowerment.

Which brings me to the question, which I have covered on my own website, http://www.roccobasile.org/, what motivates kids to learn from their teachers? During this reform movement, educators were interested in a number of new education theories offering insights into the way students learn. One of the theories includes something called "constructivism," where students learn by doing rather than observing.

One of the biggest complaints about the American education system has been its top-down approach with the states governing schools. Today, schools and teachers are asserting more control over education management decisions. Non-profit charter schools and for-profit education management programs are offering students public school learning environments that break away from the traditional state-run system.

Children of the City, for example, has been wildly successful with its after school and summertime programs. By personally connecting with each child and youth in their environment, the non-profit fosters strong relationships to teach, inform and counsel on various life issues and skills through programs such as its Create Success, where parents have seen dramatic increases in student’s reading and math levels, healthy study habits, communications, and improved peer relationships.

All in all, parents today now have more choices. They can actually choose to take their students out of poorly run schools and place them into parochial schools for example, or as with an increasing number of families, parents and their offspring can get out of the classroom and do homeschooling instead.

Are we Pushing Kids too Hard in School?

In many states, schools are back in session after the summer break. We’ve been seeing the new trends for earlier educational trends for kids, such as academic tutoring programs for three year olds, and middle school students taking algebra courses. Educating our kids is starting earlier and earlier.

These trends are being driven by parental anxiety about the fact that many schools that have failed to challenge our children, boost achievement for disadvantaged students, as well as tougher college entrance exams. Are we pushing our kids to move ahead too quickly? Or is America losing its ground in education of our youth globally?

Futurist James Canton believes this might be the case. In his book"The Extreme Future" he said, "Quality public education, in crisis today, will either propel or crash the future aspirations of the American workforce."

The deputy superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Lynn Spampinato, believes that schools are simply trying to adjust to the realities of the 21st century.

"We don't want education to be the way it was in 1920," she said. "There's more for children to learn today, more exposure to all kinds of information at younger ages. Education doesn't set the values and the pace of society, but it's our job is to prepare students for the world they're going to live in."

One example is a trend toward introducing concepts of math and science in middle school. This used to be called an acceleration class, but now the expectation in the state standards is that all students need to be learning it. The reason for this change is a survey called the "Trends in International Math and Science Studies" done in 1995. The results showed American students were ahead in fourth-grade math but dropped to the bottom in 12th.

Educators seem to agree that the younger the child, the more controversial it becomes to push down academic curricula. Most agree that young children learn best in rich play environments that stimulate the senses in age-appropriate ways. I have been collecting research like this on my website http://www.roccobasile.org/ for about a year now, and one of the programs that I am very heavily involved with which backs this up are the youth programs at Children of the City, a non-profit that reaches at-risk inner-city children and youth with hope, guidance and resources to positively affect their lives and communities.

Children of the City programs include FutureSafe, a collaborative monthly event that is attended by an average of 500 children. It is designed to deter children from drug abuse, delinquency, gangs and even teen pregnancy. It is often a first step for children when it comes to engaging in structured afterschool activities. Click here to learn more.

Helping Kids Go Green

A cool website (Greenraising.com) was started by a group of parents who had observed how challenging it is for parents' associations to raise the funds necessary for their kids to get an excellent elementary education. These parents also had noted that their kids were coming home from school frustrated about not being able to actively participate in having an effect on what they had learned about pollution, global warming, and poor living conditions among some people around the world. The website was developed to help solve both problems.

Greenraising raises money for schools, and also gives kids an opportunity to learn that their actions can help make changes in the world. For anyone who is interested in other educational trends, such as how one charity, Children of the City is helping kids please check out the information on my own website at http://www.roccobasile.com/

Schools and non-profits like http://www.childrenofthecity.org/ can fill out an online application and in one to seven business days they will receive 25 percent of the sales from Web drives or 40 percent of sales from catalog drives directed to buyers who name their group as the beneficiary.

Things like recycled gift wrap paper, cleaning supplies, free-trade chocolate, even recycled rulers made out of old paper money that has been taken out of circulation by the government are available on the website.

Student SAT Scores are Lowest in Decade

News just out today about our country's high-school students and their poor performance on SAT college-entrance exams. There is a bigger gap now between minority groups (who score lower) and the overall population. This raises the question, which I have been covering for the last year in my website http://www.roccobasile.net/, about the quality of education in the U.S. This news is really sad.

Apparently the average scores for the class of 2008 were as follows:
502 for the critical-reading section;
515 for mathematics; and
494 for writing.
Note: Each section judged on a 200 to 800 point scale.

These scores match the averages last year in 2007. What this means is that the combined scores remain at the lowest level this current decade. Reading scores over the past two years were the lowest since 1994, while math represented the worst since 2001.

The really bad news is that African-American students only received an average critical reading score of 430, which is 72 points below the general population and also three points beneath the 2007 level.

what does all this mean? The wide variations among different groups of students taking the SAT tests has now fueled yet another debate on the effectiveness of our system's test-preparation courses aiming to improve the performance and SAT scores.

According to the College Board, a New York-based nonprofit that oversees the SAT test, says the stalled scores stem from a larger and more diverse group of students taking the test.

In total, more than 1.5 million students from the high-school class of 2008 took the SATs. That is two percent more than in 2007 and eight percent more than five years ago. Minority SAT takers comprise 40 percent of test takers, up from one third in the last 10 years.

--Rocco Basile

Middle School Students

About 96 percent of middle school students - that bridge between gradeschool and highschools comprised of grades 7 8 and 9 - believe that it is very important or somewhat important to make good grades. An awkward age, these students are between childhood and adolescence, experiencing the physical, emotional and cognitive changes associated with this stage of human development. Nine in ten (90%) said they felt prepared and expected to succeed.

I remember this age well, because it was before my time as a student at Xaverian High School in
New York. You can find more information on my interests in
educational trends at http://www.roccobasile.net/, where I list many aspects of my charity work via supporting the school's Joe DiMaggio Award Gala where we raise funds for the school. Xaverian includes one of New York City's only International Baccalaureate Programs. Xaverian attracts about 1,400 students annually, and in addition to its reputation for academic excellence, the school is renowned for graduating young men of strong moral character .

According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), Lumina Foundation for Education, Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) and their KnowHow2Go campaign, commissioned Harris Interactive last March 2007 to conduct a poll called "Voice From the Middle." They polled 1814 seventh and eighth graders who shared their perspectives about current school experiences and expectations for high school. (Source: http://www.pdkintl.org/ms_poll/ms_poll.htm)

The middle school survey also found the following:
• 93 percent of students say there is “no chance” that they will drop out of high school and not graduate. (This is compared to the nearly 500,000 students who drop out annually as estimated by the NCES and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
• 83 percent of students know little or nothing about the classes they need to take to graduate from high school.
• About 32 percent say that they have “quite a bit” or “a great deal” of information about the classes they need in preparation for college.

Cash to Kids for Passing AP Subject Tests Flunked

In the news today (New York Post) it seems a very controversial initiative paying high-school students for passing Advanced Placement (AP) tests has apparently failed. The new program, which was targeting black and Hispanic students, didn't spur kids to make the grade, according to the Council of Urban Professionals, the organization who distributes the funds.

Here's how it was supposed to work -- 25 low-income city public schools and six parochial schools were offered private money on a sliding scale - from $500 to $1,000 - if they passed their five-point AP subject tests by scoring between three and five.

The interesting thing is that right here in New York, we have a program called Children of the City that is non-profit, and seems to be working really well to help students improve their grades. As I am on their Board, I support this charity wholeheartedly on my own educational website, http://www.roccobasile.org/.

Here is one student's success. David began volunteering in the programs at Children of the City when he was a teenager. Then he began writing and performing Rap music with values-based lyrics that reiterated the principles that he had learned when he attended the non-profit's Future Safe Program. David now provides tech support for the traders at Goldman Sachs, and he credits Children of the City with helping him learn the principles for success that helped him to rise above the effects of poverty.

The Advanced Placement test program seemed to have a good mission, as it was meant to prepare more kids for college and give them some money to spend in preparation. But the number of students passing their AP tests in the 31 schools actually dipped to 1,476 this year - down five from 2007, when there was not a cash offer. So it actually backfired! The "pass" rate fell from 35 percent in 2007 to 32 percent this year.

Apparently people behind this privately funded initiative said they saw many positive results on such as an 8 percent increase in the number of AP tests taken in total, plus a 19 percent increase in students scoring at top point levels. And in fact, the passing rates increased by more than 50 percent at nine of the 31 schools.

More than 1,100 students are collecting about $1 million. Meanwhile, our Children of the City kids are collecting much more than than.

-- Rocco Basile

Back to School Educational Issues Include TIME

This year, children will face a number of issues and challenges at school and in the classroom including bullying, violence, and discrimination as well as the fact that there are some disadvantaged schools and classrooms without enough books or desks. What's more, many children themselves are facing individual challenges such as health problems, depression, obesity, dyslexia, disabilities, and other social issues.

Parents and teachers alike know that education is more than just classrooms and books. That we know, and I often post articles on this topic in my own educational website known as RoccoBasile.org. But what is finally encouraging, is that the government is finally proposing new bills to help deflect problems like this and increase a student's chances to learn.

For instance, Senator Kennedy recently (8/1/08) introduced the Time for Innovation Matters in Education (TIME) Act, which appears to be an important next step for the expanded learning time movement.

Co-sponsored by Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, it is intended to provide federal funding that supports states expanding their school days in pilot schools. This reform initiative, modeled after the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time Initiative, would enable low-performing, high-poverty schools to implement a longer school days or school years, by 2010. If enacted, the TIME Act allocates $350 million next year and up to $500 million in the year 2014.

Senator Kennedy emphasizes the need to help American schools to remain competitive, and also a need to ensure that each student gets a 21st century education. He and his co-sponsors believe in expanded learning time as a promising new reform strategy for American schools.

Back to School Educational Trends

It appears as if today’s trends in education include the fact that everything is getting earlier! One online article claims that parents are now taking their three-year-olds to tutoring programs, and using flashcards and homework. Kindergartners are now doing the work that first-graders used to do with letters and numbers, and middle school kids are enrolling in algebra courses a year or two earlier than ever before. Finally, high school students are signing up for prep classes for the SAT college entrance exam.

They say these trends are being driven by several factors as follows:
1) Parents are fearful that children will fall behind if not pushed almost from birth
2) There is frustration with schools that have failed to boost achievement for disadvantaged students or challenge the middle and top tiers sufficiently
3) There is competition for college entrance
4) There’s an overall sense that America is losing ground in the global marketplace.

This last point has been fueled by futurists like James Canton in his book entitled "The Extreme Future" where he said about the top ten trends that will shape the future of America – “Quality public education, in crisis today, will either propel or crash the future aspirations of the American workforce … America’s workforce must be transformed, made more globally competitive, with higher education, science, and innovation skills necessary to ensure future prosperity.”

Sherry Cleary, assistant professor of education at Pitt and director of the University Child Development Center said, “Encouraging students to challenge themselves and expand their horizons is always a good thing, she said. "But if they're being pushed to get a head start on college credits mainly so that they can finish early and go to graduate school early and get a job early, one has to wonder, what's the rush?"

In another opinion, Psychologist David Elkind published his landmark book called, "The Hurried Child" back in 1981. “The pressure to grow up fast, to achieve early in the very great in middle-class America. There is no room today for the ‘late bloomer’... Children have to achieve success early or they are regarded as losers," he said.

This book is about to be reissued, and Dr. Elkind is now saying, the phenomenon is even more prevalent than it was a quarter-century ago.

It is one thing to offering college electives to high school teens, but the younger the child, the more controversial it is. Most child development experts agree that young children learn best in rich play environments that stimulate the senses in age-appropriate ways.

I have seen this time and time again at Children of the City, where programs help children and their mentors and families engage in activities, support for homework assistance, and community programs that help entire families.

Other learning programs like Junior Kumon Math and Reading Centers is now offering academic tutoring for children as young as two, and the Sylvan Learning Centers and Stanley Kaplan now have materials for kindergartners. Junior Kumon claims to have 28,000 children enrolled the United States, in less than two years since they entered the U.S. marketplace.

Trends indicate that introducing the concepts of math and science in middle school used to be called “acceleration” while now it is an “expectation” in the state standards. Once reason is the Trends in International Math and Science Studies survey of 1995 which showed that American students were ahead in fourth-grade math but dropped to the bottom in the 12th grade.

The Los Angeles Unified School District made passing algebra a graduation requirement. 48,000 ninth-graders took the course in 2004, and 44 percent of them failed. Many went on to repeat the course several times and kept on failing until they gave up and sadly, they dropped out.

On the other hand, a program used in the Pittsburgh Public School districts for the middle school curriculum called Connected Math was designed to introduce math concepts in a way that students could apply to real life. It has become as controversial as the reading wars and is now known as the math wars. Students who take the course for the first time in ninth grade will have to score at or above grade level. Those who don't will have to take an additional tutorial class each day.

The fact is that today, teens are killing themselves and each other at triple the rate they were twenty years ago; teen pregnancy rates in the United States are the highest for any Western nation; fourth-grade girls are dieting in record numbers; and twenty percent of youngsters are "flunking" kindergarten. Finally millions of children are medicated daily to make them more "educable" and "manageable" in school and at home.

So in reality, I believe that the answer may in fact lie in what is going on at home as well as what we deem necessary to push youngsters at school academically. If we had more programs nationwide to support students as they grow up, perhaps the results would speak for themselves just like the results speak for students who have been through the Children of the City programs. Community support has helped our community in Brooklyn New York. These programs are proven, and something the rest of the nation could learn from... Visit http://www.childrenofthecity.org/ to learn more.

-- Rocco Basile

Educational Trends: Learning Games for Kids

Today I noticed a very interesting news announcement about a company called LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. who just released two new educational game titles based on Lucasfilm's upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

These are learning games, and apparently they are so successful that the company also plans to develop two additional Star Wars learning games for 2009. Each game connects to what is called the LeapFrog(R) LearningPath, which is a free online tool that shows parents what their child is learning.

LeapFrog developed these educational games, based on the very popular Lucasfilm storylines and characters, for its two new gaming platforms:

1) The Leapster2 Learning Game System, for kids from four to eight,
2) TheDidj Custom Gaming System, for children from six to ten years old.

Both games are available at http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming and at major retailers. The suggested retail price for the Leapster2 game is $24.99, and for the Didj title, $29.99.

In a recent survey of more than 1,000 parents by ConsumerQuest for LeapFrog, 66 percent of the parents of three-to 11-year-old children felt playing with educational video games gives their child an educational advantage.

I know from my experience with my educational charity work, which can be seen at http://www.roccobasile.org/, that parents are concerned about how their kids learn. At Children of the City, for example, there is one program known as Create Success, that is fast becoming a model sought after by other organizations. A high priority is placed on student’s academic success with intense tutoring and daily personal homework help. This connection with the student allows us the open door to provide them with counseling, advocacy within the social systems (school and court), age-appropriate group and individual mentoring, family mediation, creative and performing arts, as well as sports.
Children of the City goals are:
To close the academic skills gap;
To displace the poverty mentality;
To provide the support and resources needed to help each child and youth complete their education and enter the workplace;

Create Success evaluates student performance using NYC Department of Education assessment tools. Our evaluation measures showed that over the past three years:
95 percent of the students tested improved several DRA levels;
20 percent increased an entire grade level;
All students expressed they felt more comfortable reading, more confident in their math skills, and had a positive outlook about their educational success.

Learning Disabilities

For people who have a learning disability, it doesn't mean that they can't learn, and it's not uncommon either. Usually a learning disability happens due to the way we process information in our brains. It is why people learn differently, and that is why everyone first has to figure out how they learn best.

Parents, teachers and other learning specialists such as a school psychologist can help figure out what a child's learning problem is - and then come up with ideas for how to improve it.
Learning disabilities are not contagious, but they can be genetic, meaning that they can be passed down in families through the genes. There may even be some other family members who have had some learning troubles as well.

One common learning disability is known as "dyslexia," which is a learning disability that means a child has a lot of trouble reading and writing. Kids who have trouble with math may have a learning disability called "dyscalculia," while people who have trouble forming letters when they write may have what is know as "dysgraphia."

Other kids may have language disorders, meaning they have trouble understanding language and understanding what they read. It can be confusing, though. What qualifies as "trouble" enough to be diagnosed with a learning disability? Reading, doing math, and writing letters may be tough for lots of kids at first. But when those early troubles don't disappear, and there is little or no progress, it's possible the child has a learning disability.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is also sometimes misdiagnosed as a learning disability. Children with ADHD can learn in school without special assistance, even though they may be easily distracted. ADHD itself isn't a learning disability, researchers believe kids with ADHD may be more likely to have learning disabilities.

How do you know if your child has a learning disability? Maybe he or she read a chapter of one of their school books and then can't remember anything. Or in class, maybe everyone else seems to follow along easily, but your child gets stuck and doesn't know what page everyone else is on. here are some other questions to determine possible learning disorders:
Does your child struggle in school?
Do you think he or she should be doing better in school?
Is reading harder for your child than you think it should be?
Is your child's handwriting slow?
Does your child make spelling errors?
Are they having difficulty with math?
Is it hard for your child to stay organized? Do they lose things or forget them?

But even if you said "yes" to these questions, you won't know for sure until you have gone to a psychologist or learning specialist. They will give your child tests to determine any learning problems, and they should also be able to identify what your child's strengths are. Once a psychologist or learning specialist figures out what the learning problem is, you and your child can both work towards solving the problem.

-- Rocco Basile

CNN Black in America Program Highlights Educational Trends

Today CNN Student News posted an online news segment that examines how two specialized schools in New York are targeting the dropout rate of African-American students. CNN's Black in America project examines what it means to be black in America today, and education is a huge topic. I am definitely interested in this because of the charity work I do, which is featured in my website http://www.roccobasile.com/. There is a big disparity between black and white students.

The CNN news piece talks about one of the schools -- The Baldwin School -- a new public school with small classes, which has a 94 percent graduation rate. One student drops out every 26 seconds in America. Many of the New York students were failing before coming to Baldwin, and they are now doing better than most students in the New York public schools. age three blacks fall behind.

A Harvard study found that black students fall behind by the time they are three years old, and 3/4 of the one million New York students are a minority, with 70 percent impoverished. Schools like Baldwin are fighting to change this, proving that smaller schools and mentoring is what is doing the trick. They are beating the odds by focusing on a student's individual needs.

This is no surprise to me -- because the charity I work with, Children of the City, which has been proving this since 1981. We have been getting kids off the streets and into the classroom, helping to dramatically improve the students grades who live in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn New York.

In other CNN news segments, the news is grim about dropouts. One students drop out every 26 seconds in America, and for African-Americans the number is in (Source: American Alliance) or one million dropouts a year.

That's why well known and recognized African Americans like David Tyree, started volunteering at Children of the City, winning the football hero the charity's Children’s Champion Award at the charity's annual fundraising Benefit.

For more information on how you can support, go to http://www.childrenofthecity.org/.

--Rocco Basile

Math Scores Are in for Boys versus Girls

Today the news covered the latest on boys' math scores. It seems girls and boys have roughly the same average scores on state math tests, but researchers have reported that boys excelled or failed more often. This news is according to a Science journal study that examined the scores from seven million students who took statewide math tests - grades two through 11 in 10 states between the years 2005 and 2007.

As I have covered before in my blog and also on my education focused website, roccobasile.org, this is a long standing debate about gender difference in aptitude for mathematics. There's been much speculation through the years about why here were so few women involved in science, engineering and math.

In the 1970s and 1980s, studies regularly found that high- school boys tended to outperform girls, however, recent studies have found few differences, and the trends also show more women in science and engineering careers today.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, did not find significant overall differences between the boys' and girls' scores. What they did find, however, is that boys' scores were more variable than those of girls. More boys scored extremely well -- or extremely poorly -- than the girls. Girls were more likely to earn scores that were closer to the average scores for all students.

One measure of a top score is achieving the "99th percentile" -- scoring in the top 1% of all students, and the research proves that the boys were significantly more likely to reach this goal than the girls. One example - in Minnesota, 1.85 percent of white boys in the 11th grade reached the 99th percentile, compared with 0.9% of the girls. There were more than twice as many boys than girls among the top scorers.

No one knows the reason for the differences, and the results may not apply to all ethnic groups.
What is interesting is that the study found the boys consistently more variable than the girls, and this was in every state and every grade.